Title: When Reality Strikes
Mark's mouth drops open for a second but I have to give him credit for quickly recovering. "Well um when I brought your cell phone the guy gave me the rose as part of some promotion." I bite my lip to keep from laughing. "Wow that must be some cell phone store. I've never heard of giving roses away as a promotion. Can you tell me the name of the store, I think I may get a phone for my friend Amber as a joke." Mark gets up and walks over to the bed. "Ok smart ass you know as well as I do that I brought you the rose. And let me tell you I'm regretting it more and more as every second ticks by." I hold the rose up and look at Mark. "I thought it was very sweet. No man has ever given me any kind of flowers before." It hurt me to admit that little bit of info but it was the truth.
Mark sits down on the bed beside me. " Are you trying to get me to believe no man has ever brought you flowers?" I nod my head at him. "Well I'll be damned. I figured all through your life men must have been sending flowers to you all the time." I sigh and rest the rose in my lap. "Yes I know how pathetically sad that sounds but I always got caught up with the wrong type of guys. They barely had money to buy food for themselves let alone buy me flowers and to be honest they all didn't seem the type to know how to be romantic." Mark brushes the hair out of my face and stares into my eyes. "I don't know how a man can be around you and not have romantic thoughts."
"You seem to manage pretty well." Mark leans away from me and starts to chuckle. "Honey that's what you think. You have no idea the hell I've been going through because of you the past two weeks." I don't know if I'm supposed to take offence to that or not. "I'm sorry for being such a problem for you. Just think about it, I'll be gone from your life in two weeks." Instead of commenting Mark gets up and turns the TV off and walks over to the bed. Up until this moment I had completely forgotten there was only one bed. Mark pulls the covers back and climbs in. I move over onto my side of the bed as much as I can without falling off. I lean up and turn off the light and just lie there in the darkness. When I hear Mark start to snore I roll over onto my side and try to fall asleep.
The next morning when I wake up Mark is already gone. When I try to get up to go take a shower I realize I can't move. The heaviness in my chest has intensified. I start to cough and tears pour out of my eyes from the pain. I roll over on my side and try to calm down. When I hear the door open and Mark walks back in I can't even call out to him. He must notice I'm awake because he walks over to the bed. When he notices the tears streaming down my face he picks me up and holds me in his lap. "Baby what's wrong?" I somehow manage to tell him the pain is really bad and I'm having problems breathing. Mark grabs my jeans and shoes and puts them on me. He then carries me out to the car and drives me to the hospital.
Once we get to the emergency room Mark demands to stay with me but the nurse tells him he has to wait in the waiting room. The doctor checks me over and sure enough I have pneumonia. Luckily it's not too serious but they want to keep me for the day to pump some antibiotics into me. They admit me and put me in my own room. The nurse helps me settle in. "I'm going to get your boyfriend for you in a few minutes. He's been so worried. All he's been doing is pacing back and forth asking when he can see you. You sure are a lucky girl." I never bother to correct her because to be honest the thought of Mark as my boyfriend spreads some warmth into my chest. I don't know how to reconcile that thought with myself considering he is such a pain in the ass but yup the thought is still there.
When Mark walks into the room he rushes over to me. "How are you feeling?" Luckily the medicine the doctor has given me has kicked in so I don't feel the pain. "I'm doing pretty good. The doctor wants me to stay here till tomorrow but I am going to wait a few hours and then try to get out of here. You have a lot of personal appearances this week and I have a few calls left to make." I can tell Mark is about to argue so I pretend to fall asleep and the funny thing is I actually do fall asleep.
When I awake sometime later I notice the table next to me has a beautiful bouquet of flowers. I feel the tears well up when I realize only one person could of gotten them for me. Sure enough I can hear Mark outside of my room talking to someone. By the way he is talking I'm assuming he's on the phone. "Listen Vince, I think it's for the best if you let Erica out of her contract. Yeah I know she has two weeks left but I think it's a good idea if you let her go now. I don't want her here. In fact I want her on the first plane out of here, she can't do her job. I'm glad you see it my way. Yeah call her in about an hour and then you can tell her. All right bye." Idiot me thought he actually cared about me. When I hear the door to my room open I turn my head so Mark can't see my tears.